I wonder whether those points are appealing just because they are not what we have experienced, in other words, unrealistic. And why most of us feel Dewey's argument about education sounds so much sense but the education system today is still not close to what Dewey proposed. And, can education be so pure/innocent?
When I think about education, the first idea is that education is the tool that government uses to brain wash their people, starting from their childhood. The government decides which textbooks to use, what should be taught and what should not be. Yes there are private schools. But the students there still need to take the same nation-wide exam in order to get in the college. So they still need to learn what public school students learn from school. Although I think it is a very good point that moral training should be the main focus of school education, maybe more important than the nature science study, I am not clear whether and how the whole education system can be altered to a different form. Or maybe it is not necessary to change the whole system, I just wonder there is something really can be done in our life.
It's interesting that you talk about how the government uses education as a tool. I actually have thought the same thing many times. Instead of allowing children to be creative and explore themselves and their environment, we have created such rigidity through our classroom environment, national testing that is even required in grade school, and as you said even the textbooks that we use that are historically inaccurate and represent the views that (in my opinion) elite men want us to have. I keep going back to the question that Dr. Glassman mentioned Thursday, and that was do we change the education system to change society, or do we need to change society to change the education system? I think the change would have to begin with the society. I think only through real social change can we even begin to imagine classrooms that do not reflect the values that have forced down our throats for so long. I keep thinking about how Dewey mentions that the current education system is a disconnect between mind and body, and can't help but make connections between how recently we have been so caught up in diagnosing children with ADHD and learning disorders. It is so sad to think that we have gone so far as to medicate children - to stifle their body and mind - in order to create people who are not able to question authority, and who most often become the most marginalized people. Instead of fostering creativity and embracing difference we create people unable to think for themselves and who continue to devalue diversity. I'm almost afraid to think of how much social change would be necessary to implement true change in schools that would be productive - that is to say - where children from these schools would be able to enter universities or career paths without the testing that is generally required. I can't imagine that it would go over well with the people that were products of the current environment when they see others getting ahead of them on different standards. I wish I could envision this sort of change because it would be completely amazing - in a sense liberating and empowering. But I guess it's difficult when this is how most of us have been taught to view the world.
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